


Hot and Cold

by Madalayna



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bickering, F/M, Fitzsimmons at Sci Ops, Fitzsimmons being Fitzsimmons, Humor, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Male-Female Friendship, Not the cat again, Prompt Fic, Thermostat fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:19:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madalayna/pseuds/Madalayna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written from this Tumblr prompt:</p><p>"I’m turning down the heat. If you’re cold, just put a jumper on!"</p><p>“Well, why don’t you just take your clothes off?!”</p><p>Followed by a very long, awkward moment of silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot and Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MechBull](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechBull/gifts).



> This includes my head canon of the full dead cat story alluded to in the season one episode "FZZT".

They had been working for nearly two weeks non-stop—sometimes up to twelve hours a day—on their latest project. It had shown so much promise as a tool for field agents, that word had come from on-high—they were to work on nothing else until it was completed. Simmons was re-analyzing the effect her superheated combustion formula had on various materials while Fitz was refining the design of the delivery device he had invented.

He was in the final stages, holed-up in his corner of the lab with his headphones on, blocking out anything that might distract him 'so he could think' as he put it. She didn’t understand why he couldn’t think, it wasn’t as if she were making any noise or anything. She slipped another slide under her microscope and realized that, despite her lab coat over her perfectly adequate clothing, she was really feeling rather chilly. She hoped she hadn’t worked herself into becoming ill. She shivered a little and rose to adjust the thermostat up one or two degrees.

A few minutes later, deciding that it would be a good point to stop for lunch, she tapped Fitz on the shoulder, hearing the faint cacophony of instruments coming from the oversized headphones he preferred.

He looked rather put out as he removed them, and said, “What?”

“I just wondered if I could get you something for lunch?”

His face softened a bit and he said, “Yes, please. You know what I like.”

“Sandwich?” she smiled, wrinkling her nose a bit, she felt oddly happy but it was probably just that the end of the project was now in sight.

“Yeah,” he said with a genuine smile. “Great. Thanks.”

When she returned with their food she noticed the room felt colder again. Checking the thermostat, she found that it was now down even lower than it had been when she’d turned it up before. She didn’t think there was an automatic setting... Shrugging it off, she turned it back up again.

Not wanting to disturb him, she set Fitz’s lunch on the counter near his workstation. Then, she sat down to drink the warm, soothing soup she’d gotten. But, there was nothing but the occasional distant buzz of Fitz’s headphones to keep her company. Once she'd finished, Jemma went to get the specimen that she would need to set about her next task.

Returning from the refrigerator, she saw Fitz just sitting down in his chair again, though his sandwich sat on the counter, untouched, still wrapped in it's waxed paper. She assumed she was just cold from the refrigerator until she began to shiver again. She went to the thermostat and checked it yet again, only to discover that it was set _several_ degrees lower. Her eyes went to Fitz just in time to see his dart away, back to the work in front of him.

“Fitz?” She tried to sound neutral. “Did you lower the thermostat?”

He didn’t respond. She walked over and tapped his shoulder. He turned and looked up at her guiltily.

“Did you turn down the thermostat?” she asked again.

He pulled the headphones off his ears and said, “What?”

“I _said_ , did you turn down the thermostat?” She said it louder than she’d intended, her frustration was now getting the better of her.

“Yes,” he said completely innocently. “No need to yell, Simmons.”

She sighed. “I’m a little bit chilly. I’m afraid I might be coming down with something.”

“Alright,” he said simply and went back to his work.

Going to the thermostat, Jemma turned it back up again. As soon as she did, Fitz stood and, with exaggerated movements, removed first his lab coat and then his cardigan, draping them both over the back of his chair. With a final sour look, he opened his sandwich and began to eat it with one hand while typing on his keyboard with the other.

Jemma smiled, feeling happy again. Ah, everything in its place.

She started working on her specimen, testing the combustion formula on various parts until Fitz began making exaggerated sniffing noises.

“Simmons? What in the hell?” he said, turning around to see her testing the effects of her formula on organic tissue samples. “Simmons, is that—Jesus—Simmons is that a cat? Are you burnin' holes in a dead cat while I’m tryin' to eat my lunch?”

She suddenly realized that it might not have been the best time for this particular experiment. “Oh, right. I'm sorry, Fitz. I'll just put this away until later, shall I?”

She felt heat rise to her face at her own lack of consideration and she felt suddenly flustered. She would save the samples that she’d already created for analysis and put the rest back until later.

Fitz was still darting hateful glances at her, his headphones firmly back in place, but his sandwich was no longer in evidence.

Nevertheless, she hurried to put away the offending article. Setting the samples to one side of her work area, she returned the rest to the refrigerator in the back of the lab.

Closing the refrigerator door, she heard Fitz cry out. Quickly, she hurried back out to the main lab, afraid he’d been hurt, only to find him pointing frantically and staring at his half-eaten sandwich. “Simmons!” he gestured emphatically at the food. “What the—Simmons what are you trying to do? What is that?”

“Your…sandwich,” she ventured hesitantly.

“No, Simmons. _That._ ” He pointed to the specimen container she had moved to the side so she could clean her work area.

“Oh, my samples?”

She reached for them as Fitz said, “No, Simmons. That is a cat’s liver and it is _six inches_ from my lunch.” He looked from the box to her and back again. The look of disgust was plain—it twisted his lips into an unpleasant grimace.

“Oh, Fitz,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s fine.”

“ _No_ ,” he said emphatically, throwing up his hands. “It’s not _fine_. It’s so _not_ fine, I can’t even begin to describe how _not fine_ it is.”

“Fitz, you’re overreacting,” she tried to soothe.

He was shaking his head wildly back and forth. “ _First_ , you make it hotter than the blazing fires of hell in here. _Then_ , you burn dead animals while I’m trying to eat my lunch, and _now_ you infect said lunch with god-knows-what filthy diseases that cat had—not to mention, it’s festering, bloated, _decaying_ flesh.”

“Fitz, you can’t honestly think that anything could have gotten out of the specimen box, then traveled six inches to your sandwich in the time it took me to go to the refrigerator and back again, can you?” She couldn’t believe the paranoia. He was supposed to be a scientist. Rational.

“Why? Why can’t I think that?” His voice was getting a bit of a hysterical edge to it now. His eyes were growing round in shocked outrage.

“Because it’s ridiculous,” she replied simply. Best to set him straight. She gave a sharp nod of her head to emphasize her point.

“Oh, I’m _ridiculous_!” He said, his face was getting red and he was beginning to puff out his chest in some sort of show of scornful annoyance. “I’m bloody _ridiculous_ now!”

“I didn’t say that,” she didn’t know if he had really misheard her or if he was just playing this to the hilt. “I just meant, there’s no way your lunch could possibly be tainted in any way. Look.” She reached over took half of the sandwich and took a small bite, replacing it back on the waxed paper afterward.

She looked back to see Fitz staring at her in open-mouthed horror. “What the—I can’t believe you just did that.”

She wasn’t sure if he meant sampling a _tainted_ sandwich or merely _his_ sandwich either way she probably hadn’t made the point she’d intended.

“Look Fitz, I said I was sorry. I hope you can accept my apology. I’m happy to get you another sandwich if you don’t want to eat this one.”

“No danger of that,” he said. She wasn’t sure if he meant the sandwich or the apology but he turned and walked to the small thermostat panel on the wall. He looked her directly in the eye as he deliberately punched the down button several times—with each beep his smile grew wider.

“That’s just silly, Fitz,” she said, trying to be the voice of reason.

He leaned his shoulder against the wall and crossing one leg over the other, arms laced over his chest, affecting a casual stance against the wall—safeguarding the panel.

“What are you doing?” she wondered aloud, incredulous.

“Me?” he said with mock innocence. “I’m turning down the heat. If you’re cold, put a jumper on.”

She was trying to be reasonable and he was resorting to these childish antics. She felt blood rising to her cheeks and her anger along with it, bubbling up like a boiling kettle. She suddenly heard herself shouting, “Well, why don't  _you_ just take your clothes _off?_ ”

Silence reigned while they both replayed what she’d just said over in their minds.

Fitz’s face grew slack, even as his eyes grew wide with disbelief. She replayed it again and again, unwilling to believe she’d actually said it. Her anger evaporated like steam, leaving a hot bundle of tense, dark emotion glowing in the pit of her stomach. Her cheeks were made of fire.

“I—I mean…I,” she wasn’t sure what she’d meant but it hadn’t been _that_. _Heat of the moment, means nothing_ , she told herself.

Fitz’s shock had shifted, quick-as-you-please, into pure amusement.

He was grinning foolishly as she said, “I’ll get you another sandwich.”

She all but ran from the lab. She tried to compose herself outside the door when she returned a few minutes later with a fresh sandwich in hand. She took two deep breaths and walked inside.

Fitz was frantically attempting to spray a geyser of white hot flames with a fire extinguisher but the chemical powder was flying everywhere but the fire.

She dropped his sandwich and slapped the button that activated the ventilation system. She rushed over, taking his wrist in her hand and helping him aim the nozzle more directly at the fire. It took several minutes but when it was finally out, they both collapsed against the desk behind them. They had staggered back and fallen against one another and she could feel his arm shaking.

“You tried it without me?” she asked, only curious with no anger behind it.

“No,” he said, his breath still coming rapidly. “Went off.”

“Oh,” she said. 

She noticed that in his efforts to extinguish the flames, his shirt had come halfway untucked, one tail loose and hanging. She reached over without thinking and picked up a corner of the material. Fitz gently plucked it from her hand and tucked it quickly back away. She didn’t know what had come over her—it had been much too familiar. “Sorry, Fitz.”

“S’alright,” he said shaking his head. She heard him rumble with laughter, it began to grow until he was laughing outright, bent over double with his hands on his thighs.

“What? What’s so funny?” She really wanted to know. _Perhaps some sort of adrenaline-induced euphoria._

“Jemma Simmons conspires with the universe to undress me,” he said still laughing. His face sobered and his laughter died in an instant as he realized how it must have sounded. He searched her face for a reaction while his own formed an expression quite contrite.

She found a small laugh bubbling up from her chest. It was part relief, part something she couldn't quite identify. Fitz broke into a grin and soon they were both laughing together.

At that moment, two fire fighters burst through the lab doors, one held an axe, the other pulled a large industrial looking fire extinguisher on a wheeled cart—he struggled trying to drag it into the room. There was an object in its path; Simmons realized it was the sandwich she’d dropped.

Fitz looked at her, his eyes wide and exhausted, and they both burst out laughing again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a terrible offering but I had to do it. ;)
> 
> Completely un-beta'd all the mistakes are mine.
> 
> Bonus points if you totally knew that was the Mouse Hole.


End file.
